Sunday, April 3, 2011

At least once a weekend I'll find myself in the car when "Car Talk" is playing on NPR on the radio. These guys crack me up but to tell the truth most of their shtick I've heard before. It is the credits at the end that get me laughing out loud every time.The ending credits of the show start with the colorfully nicknamed actual staffers (notably producer "Doug the subway fugitive, not a slave to fashion, bongo boy Berman" and "John 'Bugsy' Lawlor, just back from the..." every week a different eating event with rhyming foodstuff names), but soon turn into a lengthy list of pun-filled fictional staffers and sponsors such as statistician Marge Innovera ("margin of error"), customer care representative Haywood Jabuzoff ("Hey, would you buzz off") meteorologist Claudio Vernight ("cloudy overnight"), optometric firm C.F. Eye Care ("see if I care"), Russian chauffeur Pikop Andropov ("pick up and drop off"), Director of Working Mothers Group Juarz Musbidragin ("Our ass must be draggin") and law firm Dewey Chetem and Howe ("Do we cheat 'em and how").At the end of the show, Ray warns the audience, "Don't drive like my brother," to which Tom replies, "And don't drive like my brother." The original tag line was "Don't drive like a knucklehead." There have been variations such as, "Don't drive like my brother..." "And don't drive like his brother," and "Don't drive like my sister..." "And don't drive like my sister". One of my favorite callers was a woman asking if her husband should trade in his college sports car (it was old and not of sound body) for a much more sensible family van.They asked "Has he had a vasectomy?""Yes" she replied and explained their four kids were the reason they needed a van."Well his masculinity is hanging on by a thread. Throw the dog a bone and let him keep his car for Pete sakes!"I pulled over into the emergency lane laughing at that one.Thanks "Click and Clack". Weekends wouldn't be the same without you. You crack me up -- Every Time.